Life in the Scriptures has a new format that will spend a Year in the New Testament, in a book-by-book journey reading one chapter per day. This approach enables busy people to have daily Bible readings, and to increase their familiarity with the people, places, and teachings of the New Testament. It is a profitable and helpful Bible study method. May God bless it to you.

April 20, 2011

Maundy Thursday, Day Thirty-eight

Lectionary

Morning - Psalm 116, Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 13:18

Evening - Psalms 142, 143, Lamentations 3:40-58, John 17

John 17

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Commentary

Thursday before Easter Sunday recalls the institution of Holy Communion.Passover began that evening at sunset, and Christ gathered His disciples into the upper room to keep the feast.After the meal Jesus took the bread and cup, saying, "This is My body.This is My blood."Afterwards they went to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, where Jesus was "captured" and led away for His "trials." The trials lasted through the night and into the next morning.Friday took Him to the cross, and by Friday evening He was dead.Thus, we see the awful finality in Jesus' words in 17:1, "the hour is come."The time has come for Him to go to the cross.The hour has come for Him to accomplish that for which He came into the world.His journey to the cross is almost complete.

Devotional Thoughts

Many people think growing in holiness means increasing religious activities.It is true that a genuinely holy person will participate in Bible study, prayer, public worship, and other religious things. But these things alone do not make one holy.The people who put Christ to death were religious people.They were leaders in the "Church," but they were far from holy.They honoured God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him.Holiness, then, begins with an attitude of Godliness in the heart.This attitude expresses itself in prayer, worship, and the other outward activities of holiness.To have the activities without the inward attitude is like having a body without a soul.Such a body is dead.To have the inward attitude without the outward actions is to have a phony faith.For real faith always moves us to outward actions.

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A Prayer for Biblical Understanding

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given to us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

About Me

The Rt. Rev. R. Dennis Campbell is Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church Diocese of Virginia, and Rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church in Powhatan, Virginia. He is the author of two books, He Shall Reign, and Gotta Run, and holds degrees from Southwest Baptist University, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.